At Stowe Gardens. Simon pretends to be a tree. No-one else takes any notice.Wright has a couple of guiding metaphors. He offers his reading of the Bible as the 'key to unlock' the Bible's narrative (is the Bible a safe that needs cracking? a door that needs opening? is it somehow closed without the key?). This sounds uncomfortably reminiscent of George Eliot's scholar Casuabon and his never-ending project to find the 'key to all mythologies'. He also repeatedly speaks of the theme of God's mission as a 'framework', or an 'overarching framework'. (Goldsworthy uses the same vocabulary). Though it isn't a framework, really (which is a structural metaphor), but, in the way Wright uses it, an organising motif. But: why do we need a 'framework'? Why do we need such intensive exploration to uncover the 'framework'? Why are there competing 'frameworks' of equal plausibility? Are we saying that without the framework, the Bible's unity and coherence is in question somehow? (Interestingly, Wright does not discuss at any length other suggestions for an organising principle, though there are many). Isn't Jesus the Christ the organising principle (at least for Christians) and all the framework that is needed? Part of the problem here is the Wright wants to make more of the OT ethically speaking than a properly Christological reading of the OT will let him.
Interestingly, Wright starts by offering his theme 'the mission of God' as one possible hermeneutical key among many. By the end, it has become THE right and correct way to make sense of the Bible. So, he is saying more than: this theme is a neglected theme and look how much of the Bible is related to it. Now he is saying 'this is what the Bible is about, and it isn't about something else'. It becomes less a book about mission, and more a book about how to read the Bible.
5 comments:
A few remarks:
I would say that the fact that you are questioning if there is indeed a framework or organizing pattern in Scripture is interesting. But ultimately it is not a question that Christians can or should ask. In response to Marcion's heresey the early church collected these books and in an act of supernatural discernment received God's guidance. Maybe they did not know what the organizing principal was, but by God's direction they discerned that it was there.
You also ask, is the framework not Jesus Christ? Maybe, but I would say we should be more precise with language here (how Western of me). I would say the life and teaching of Jesus is the climax of the Biblical narrative in one sense.
But perhaps we could also say, that in this other missiological sense, Pentecost is in fact the culmination. The sending out and missio ad gentes is what the crucifixion and resurrection were moving towards.
Overall I a sympathetic (I think) to the books main thrust. But I want to know more specifically what he is talking about when he says "mission" or "mission of God."
With you on the framework thing. Without intending to, it says an awful lot about the unity of scripture and its underlying inherence of the Word in Jesus Christ.
Would it be fair to say many frameworks are possible, many "keys", many mythologies, but some are actual in the way God has acted and others are not actualised in the mind of God?
ps who's this Casuabon and where could I find something brief and easy on him?
Casuabon is a character in George Eliot's wonderful novel Middlemarch... he is a clergyman working on a clearly never to be finished project.
Abu - I want to know also what he means by 'the mission of God'. i think this is very unclear. It could potentially mean anything!
Casaubon (nb spelling) is also the narrator in Eco's Foucault's Pendulum - a reference to Eliot's character in a number of amusing ways.
There was also a classical scholar named Isaac Casaubon around the turn of the 17thC, 'regarded by many at the time as the most learned in Europe', according to the Allsource.
Post a Comment